Texans love their neighborhood schools. 89% of Texas public school parents are satisfied with the quality of education their kids receive, and 76% would give their child’s teacher an A or B grade. Despite the overwhelming popularity of Texas public schools and teachers, many in the education policy space question the state’s commitment to the public education system.
Texas schools by law are funded both by the state and using local property tax revenue. In an ideal world, each party should bear roughly half the cost. However, years and years of underinvestment from the state have shifted a disproportionate share of the costs onto local taxpayers, and no one wins. In 2019, lawmakers tried to rectify that with House Bill 3. H.B. 3 injected $11.6 billion into Texas public schools and stipulated for the first time that 75% of any increase to the basic allotment–put simply, the base amount of money that schools receive per student–had to be used to increase teacher pay. Though some argued the approach fell short and was not sustainable, H.B. 3 was a significant boost to Texas public schools and marked the rare occasion that the state increased funding without being ordered by a court to do so.
Unfortunately, House Bill 3 wasn’t enough to sustainably fix the funding problems in Texas public schools. Inflation has eaten up the increases, and it is estimated that schools would need to see a 25% increase in the basic allotment just to breakeven with 2019 levels by the end of 2025. As a result, over 91% of Texas public school students attend underfunded schools.
In the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers promised districts an increase in state funding, but only as leverage to pass private school vouchers. Teacher groups and school districts, understanding the long-term ramifications of the voucher program, bravely refused to take the bait, and both voucher legislation and school funding did not pass. As a result, some of the biggest districts in the state have announced layoffs, school closures, and tax hikes to cover looming budget shortfalls that the state was expected to fill.
Texas also faces a critical teacher shortage. Teachers play a critical role in developing a curiosity, confidence, and lifelong love of learning in Texas children. However, the state consistently undervalues them with average salaries more than $7,700 less than the national average. A recent survey of Texas teachers found that 75% have considered leaving the profession, up from 58% when first asked in 2020. The percent of teachers who have actually left their teaching jobs jumped up to a record high 13% in the 2022-23 school year. Texas teachers generally cite unrealistic workloads and low wages as the main forces driving them out of the classroom.
Not only does Texas underinvest in its schools, it plays politics with the materials that students use to learn. Controversy over Texas’s textbooks and curriculum goes back to the early 1920s, only a few years after Texas first empowered the State Board of Education (SBOE) to adopt textbooks for all Texas schools. Back then, the Klu Klux Klan succeeded in having the SBOE ban evolution in Texas textbooks. Over one hundred years later, the board is still debating evolution, along with comprehensive sexual education, climate change, the depiction of oil and gas, mischaracterizations of American slavery and the Transatlantic slave trade, and more. After a contentious debate over the new state sex education curriculum, one San Antonio district chose not to offer sex education courses at all in the 2022-23 school year, fearing confusion between the old and new standards might create liability for teachers and the district.
Texas employers need an educated workforce, and that starts in Texas’s K-12 public schools. Our students have just as much potential as their peers in higher-performing states. Texas does not invest enough in its students, nor does it adequately support their teachers and the schools that cultivate them into the next generation of leaders and workers. More work remains before Texas public schools and the students they serve can truly thrive.